And shape is something I can fight.
CHAPTER 34
LONARI
The Defrocked Nun has a room that doesn’t exist on any map.
No sign outside it. No listing in the guest ledger. No camera feed that doesn’t loop when you blink the wrong way. It sits behind a false wall off the service corridor and smells like cedar, cold metal, and secrets that have been sweating in the dark for decades.
Kings and traitors. That’s what the vault below is for.
This room?
This one’s forcrowdsyou can’t trust.
I call it the Choir, because everyone comes in thinking they’re here to sing for themselves.
Tonight, I’m here to make them sing the same note or choke on it.
The table is long, polished black stone with faint gold veining. Chairs upholstered in deep red like dried blood. Overhead, the lighting is soft, flattering, meant to make liars look honest.
It fails.
Gur’s major syndicates file in one by one—Gutter Saints in gray coats with sanctimonious expressions, the CoalhandGuild with hands stained permanently black from the mines, the Spindle Consortium with their silk and their smiles, the Dockwright Union reps with their hard stares and thicker hands, and three smaller outfits that live between “labor” and “crime” like the line is a joke.
They all smell like fear.
Not the panicked fear of civilians. Thecalculatingfear of people who understand exactly how pain gets distributed when the Nine gets bored.
They take seats in clusters, like animals choosing where to stand in a storm.
And then the whispers start.
“He thinks he can call a summit.”
“He’s young.”
“He’s Kaijen. He’ll burn us all.”
“Tribute’s suspended—he’s insane.”
They don’t stop talking when I enter.
They just lower their volume, like that’s respect.
I walk to the head of the table and don’t sit. I plant my hands on the stone. It’s cold enough to bite.
“Evening,” I say, voice casual. “Thanks for coming to my little secret party.”
A few faces shift, uneasy. Nobody laughs.
Coalhand’s rep—big woman, hair shaved close, eyes like quarry stone—leans back. “Cut the charm. Why are we here?”
“Because the Nine is coming,” I say.
That gets their attention fast. Like a wire snapped taut.
A man from the Spindle Consortium—thin, jeweled, too pretty—tilts his head. “The Nine is always coming.”
